14 CIVIL WORKS GUIDELINES FOR MICRO-HYDROPOWER IN NEPAL
2.7 Planning
The planning of civil engineering works for large projects is a
complex process and the skills required are considered to be a
separate discipline within the field of civil engineering. The
reason that planning is given so much importance is that the
project construction cost can be significantly brought down by
efficient co-ordination of labour, equipment and materials.
This ensures that the resources are used at their maximum
productivity.
As mentioned earlier, the planning of micro-hydro civil works
does not require the detailed work of large projects. However,
the principles are the same and care needs to be taken to
follow some basic rules. The process of constructing micro-
hydro civil works has three parts:
Understanding what has to be built
Establishing the method, equipment and the people
required
Carrying out the work safely, economically and to the quality
required to satisfy the client.
The understanding part of the process sounds straight
forward, but it should not be overlooked. Given the likely
number of people involved, effective communication and
clear demarcation of responsibilities are essential in planning.
Everyone needs to know what they are accountable for and
to whom.
There are a number of factors affecting how, when and in
what order the works can be carried out. A checklist of these
factors is as follows:
Performance of staff, equipment and materials.
Availability of staff, equipment and materials.
Holidays and festivals.
Access to the site.
Weather, seasons.
Availability of funds.
Site geology and topography.
Existing use of the site and its boundaries.
Public relations.
Preparing a “Project Implementation Schedule” in the initial
stage is always helpful since it will indicate what activities
are in the critical path and allow for planning ahead. This
chart will be very useful in optimising the resources (labour,
equipment and materials) by distributing them in a balanced
way.
Furthermore, this will also be a key tool to monitor progress by
tracking the planned versus actual milestones reached both
for a particular activity and for the overall project
implementation. Undoubtedly, such a chart will undergo
frequent revision during the construction phase. However, it
is still helpful to formulate a chart and make changes as
necessary, since it can be used to monitor the progress of work
and plan for future activities such as procurement of
construction materials and labour arrangements. A typical
project implementation chart is shown in Figure 2.5.
Apart from the implementation chart shown in Figure 2.5, a
more elaborate schedule is also prepared, especially for larger
projects (e.g., mini and small hydro) and could be useful for
higher installed capacity micro hydro projects (~100 kW).
Generally two types of schedule, one master schedule, and the
other working schedule (prepared about two weeks in advance)
are prepared. The master schedule contains major activities of a
project, controls the overall project period and is also similar to
chart shown in Figure 2.5. This is prepared before start of the
project construction (at planning stage) and is continuously
updated as construction activities commence. On the other hand,
the working schedule is prepared during the construction period
and incorporates day to day activities. A separate working
schedule is prepared for each of the major activities of the project.
A typical master implementation schedule is shown in Figure
2.6. Similarly, part of a working schedule is shown in Figure 2.7.